Alibaba vs Meta LLM showdown
Qwen 2.5 edges out Llama on benchmarks, but Llama has the better ecosystem. Both are excellent choices.
Choose Qwen for multilingual apps, Chinese language, or if benchmarks matter most to you.
Choose Llama for English-focused apps, better documentation, and wider community support.
Qwen 2.5 from Alibaba has become a top-tier open model, rivaling Llama in many benchmarks. Here's how they stack up.
| Specification | Qwen 2.5 72B | Llama 3.1 70B |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Alibaba | Meta |
| Parameters | 72B | 70B |
| Context Length | 128K | 128K |
| VRAM (Minimum) | 40GB (Q4) | 40GB (Q4) |
| VRAM (Recommended) | 48GB+ | 48GB+ |
| Release Date | September 2024 | July 2024 |
| License | Qwen License (similar to Llama) | Llama 3.1 Community License |
| Category | Qwen 2.5 72B | Llama 3.1 70B | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU (Knowledge) | 85.3% | 82.0% | Qwen 2.5 72B |
| Math (GSM8K) | 91.6% | 90.0% | Qwen 2.5 72B |
| Coding | 83.5% | 80.5% | Qwen 2.5 72B |
| Multilingual | Excellent | Good | Qwen 2.5 72B |
| Community/Docs | Good | Excellent | Llama 3.1 70B |
Check our GPU buying guides to find the right hardware for running LLMs locally.